CONTADOR HARRISON

Jessica Mauboy is a rising star in Hollywood

Posted on April 18, 2013 08:21 am

Australian pop sensation and Darwin raised Jessica Hilda Mauboy has received a major boost from show queen Ellen DeGeneres who has given Mauboy’s film, The Sapphires, thumbs up by having the Aussie singer and actress as a guest on her show. The movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year. However, early this week it made it into the box office top 20 and is now screening across 93 cinemas, with that number expected to increase in coming weeks. Back home in Australia, The Sapphires was one of the biggest films of last year with a $14.5 million box office take. Jessica Mauboy new movie “The Sapphires,” is directed by Wayne Blair and was set in 1968, when four Australian aboriginal girls, one stolen, reunite to form a singing group and are sent to entertain the U.S. troops in Vietnam with the help of their drunk manager-Chris O’Dowd. Mauboy, 23, plays aboriginal Julie, who might be destined to top the charts. The Sapphires is based on the true story of an Aboriginal girl group from the same family who left Australia to sing soul music for US troops during the Vietnam war. In the movie, Mauboy character is one of the four Aboriginal young women who although has the strongest voice is also confronted with the issue of leaving her child behind in Australia. Over the course of their big break, their infighting and sometimes confusing romantic entanglements threaten to break not only the group but their sisterhood as well.

For those who don’t know, in my home country of Australia, between 1869 and 1969, thousands of Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their parents in order to eradicate their origins so that they may believe themselves white. Mauboy is quoted as saying the word of mouth has been such a huge part of telling this story and this film. She added that lot of people in the globally are connecting to the film. The episode is set to air in the US and Australia Mauboy shared the talk show host’s couch with Jennifer Aniston. This is the second time Mauboy is appearing on Ellen’s show after the last one in Sydney. Mauboy said it was emotional sitting there and having someone of such world class interviewing me, having a natural conversation, was amazing. Jessica Mauboy is currently in the US working on her next album. Ellen DeGeneres interview attention was on singer’s life in singing, family photographs of her as a child and as a contestant on Australian Idol. When Jessica Mauboy returned to her old classroom at darwin’s Wulagi Primary School last month she revealed that she wanted to be a school teacher. Mauboy is also an ambassador for Woolworth’s Earn and Learn campaign.